Mountain Home News: Blog: Killing Seal Pups off Newfoundland and .

I am reposting this article because its that sentence of year again

Ellen DeGeneres has gotten involved and has entered a plea on her web site to end this horrible killing of Baby Seals

I personally would never take office in anything like this. Disgusting !!

However if you scroll down further I put in Pro's and Con's about this sickening sport

Here's a connection to signal a Petition to stay the clubbing of baby seals

http://www.

hepetitionsite.com/1/stop-baby-seal-clubbing/

It's the sentence of year when the seals of Canada are clubbed or stroke for their skins. There are many groups out there for and against this case that has been taking property for more then 200 years.

Some activists say they are remaining on the ice to die while others say they were killed right and did not suffer

Below is a short account of this 200 year old tradition or more. Some say its been passing on much longer then 200 years..

I have added pros and the cons.

The Newfoundland Seal Fishery

The heavy majority of seals taken annually in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the eastern coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador - known as 'The Front' - are Greenland seals, or harps.

These are gregarious creatures which migrate on a steady pattern. The northwestern Atlantic herd summers in Baffin Bay, and in the light begin to move south on the Labrador coast. Reaching the Sound of Belle Isle by late December, some go into the Gulf and others towards the Grand Banks.

In February the seals find ice on which the females can make birth. The Gulf herd usually whelps off the Magdalen Islands. The Atlantic herd moves north to see the ice drifting south along the coast of south Labrador and northeastern Newfoundland.

Here the offspring are innate in large patches. The pups weigh around 15 pounds at birth, and make a yellowish coat, that soon turns white. They rapidly put on weight, reaching 60 to 70 pounds in 16 to 18 days. At this point they are considered to be in peak condition. The white surface is soon shed - during the moult they are known as 'raggedy jackets' - and the pups lose weight. When independent of their mothers they have to the water, and are known as 'beaters'.Year-old harps are called ''.'bedlamers

Once the adult seals have themselves molted, and then mated, the herd begins its journey back to the Arctic.

These seals have no thought that in a few short months, fisherman will look with their clubs to bludgeon them to death-all for a small extra cash.

When people really wish to see change they see a way to see that their voices are heard. In partnership with the Canadian seafood boycott, people from about the earth have chosen to boycott Newfoundland and Labrador and not see the state until the seal hunt has ended. When everyday people contacted tourism based businesses to let them know they would be boycotting their province, the masses of Newfoundland and Labrador replied. Below are approximately of their words:

Quotes from people for the hunt

1. "To bad you are not on the ice flows when the run starts. Maybe a cast bullet might hit you in the proper property and put you out of your miserable life.

2. It's people like you should prepare yourself near the seal hunting and care about all the starving children in the world.

3. I read office in the seal hunting and proud of it.

4."In place to really be capable to stand behind your statement about the seal hunt, you must resist the cleanup of all species. You must never eat meat, milk, chicken, fish,etc. You must let the mice in you basement live, the insects that take you crazy must live.I'm certain you get my point. The kinship between man and fauna may be a little sad but it is what it is and we've grown to have it. That's the way god wanted it.

5. You hold up this foolish game every year, and you lose, and you lose big time you can't win , go away stop filling peoples heads with this crap.stop while your ahead, and stop wasting peoples money on such nonsense.

We don't need your tourist money.we won't starve because you determine not to get here, but in reality the seals will, if they are not controlled, would you rather throw them starve to death on the ice because a mother can't give her pup.think nearly the cod stocks.so what do seals eat ? COD....

90% of the seal pups killed are below the age of 12 weeks!

300,000 seals are being bashed over the straits each class for their fur and their pained bodies are remaining on the ice to rot

Activists call the hunt inhumane and a mark on Canada's reputations.

Quotes from people against the hunt

1. We the mass of Canada are fed up. Fed up of carrying the pity of murder that's carried out by a state that has less mass than a Toronto suburb. We are fed up of being looked at by the earth as murderers - yet we are guilty. This state has shamed one of the finest nations in the world. We are therefore, disowning Newfoundland. We want rid of it, and it's people.

2. We, the mass of Canada, will no longer bear the pity of your sins Newfoundland. 3.This is really much real. Doesn't mean Canada is at all a bad country. Its a grand country. However
killing of baby seals is really real. 4. Cruel, horrible, disgusting;

5. This needs to end! Seals are beautiful, and they are innocent creatures that don't deserve this pain. The multitude that damage them should be punished to the total extent of the law!

The run usually opens in Process in the "Gulf" areas round the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward Island. The main hunt on the so-called "front" usually begins in April off the e coast of Newfoundland. It's pretty much over by May.
The amount allowable catch for harp seals is fragmented between two areas: 70 per cent for the waters off Newfoundland and 30 per cent for the St. Lawrence Gulf region.

Are seals skinned alive?

This is a frequent accusation leveled by hunt opponents. The International Fund for Animal Welfare says seals are routinely clubbed or crack and remaining to bear on the ice until they're clubbed later.
The IFAW also charges that seals are often "skinned before being rendered fully unconscious" and said its observers found that few sealers check for a blinking reflex to confirm brain death before skinning begins. Similar "skinning alive" accusations have likewise been made by other groups, with many citing studies claiming that up to 45 per cent of seals are "skinned alive."

A 2002 paper in the Canadian Veterinary Journal found that "the great bulk of seals taken during this hunt 2026 are killed in an acceptably humane manner."
This report found that 98 per cent of hunted seals it examined had been killed properly. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) cites this work among others as validation that the hunt opponents are wrong in their accusations of widespread cruelty.

Regarding the "skinning alive" charge, the DFO says appearances can be deceiving. "Sometimes a seal may look to be moving after it has been killed," the DFO says. "However, seals have a swimming reflex that is active, even after death. This reflex falsely appears as though the creature is yet awake when it is clearly dead - similar to the reflex in chickens."
Furthermore, the DFO says the club, or hakapik, used by many sealers is "an effective tool" that kills "quickly and humanely." The Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing in Canada found that clubbing, when properly performed, is at least as humane as killing methods in commercial slaughterhouses. Opponents say clubbing often isn't "properly performed."
The union government acknowledges that it has laid more than 200 charges against sealers since 1996, but argues that shows it's serious about enforcing its regulations.